Truth and Justice for George Skatzes, a victim of a double injustice in Ohio: convicted wrongfully to life 1982, and on death row innocently following the 1993 Lucasville (SOCF) prison riot: George is one of the "Lucasville Five." This is a Support Site for George

Let’s
try to visualize the most unfair criminal trial we can imagine. Let’s
make a list of elements that might be part of such an unjust proceeding.

The list might include the following elements:

1. The
judge excuses one potential jury member after another who states that he
or she could not in good conscience recommend the death penalty.

2. The evidence in support of convicting the defendant consists entirely of testimony by other prisoners.

Each
of these elements was present in the trial of George Skatzes, who was
found guilty and sentenced to death for the aggravated murder of
prisoners Earl Elder and David Sommers.

In addition, in the portion of the trial concerning Mr. Elder’s death:

3.
Skatzes was sentenced to death for allegedly ordering prisoner Rodger
Snodgrass to murder Earl Elder. But Snodgrass, a prosecution witness,
testified that Elder was still alive when he left Elder’s cell.

4.
The medical examiner testified that Elder’s fatal wounds were caused by
a broad blade. However, Snodgrass himself as well as another
prosecution witness, Tim Williams, testified that the weapon supposedly
carried by Snodgrass was a thin, icepick-like shank that made small,
round holes.

5. Tim Williams was himself named by
two other prisoners as one of the three men who actually killed Elder.
Williams is now on the street.

6. Another prisoner,
Eric Girdy, has confessed to being one of those three men. Girdy has
repeatedly stated under oath that Skatzes was nowhere around at the time
and had nothing to do with what happened.

7. Girdy testified
that the weapon he used was a piece of broken glass from an officers’
restroom. The medical examiner testified that he found a shard of glass
in one of the potentially lethal wounds made by a broad blade.

8.
Girdy’s belated confession was accepted as true by the special
prosecutor and Girdy was duly sentenced in the Scioto County Court of
Common Pleas.
In the portion of the trial concerning the murder of David Sommers:

9.
Several weeks after Skatzes was convicted and sentenced to death for
Sommers’ homicide, prisoner Aaron Jefferson, in a separate trial, was
found guilty of allegedly committing the same murder.

10.
As in the trial of Skatzes, when Jefferson was tried for killing
Sommers the medical examiner testified once again that Sommers had died
as the result of a single, fatal blow by an instrument like a baseball
bat. Thus two men were found guilty of striking the same lethal blow.

11.
An Ohio Court of Appeals determined that there was no way to prove
which man had struck the fatal blow, but Skatzes was guilty anyway
because of his “complicity” in the murder and his sentence of death
should be affirmed.

Nothing has been done to vacate George Skatzes’ death sentence for the aggravated murders of Elder and Sommers.

What Skatzes Says

George Skatzes has written a statement from which the following are excerpts:

The
testimony by the inmates in the Earl Elder murder was contradicted and
undermined by the testimony of the forensic pathologist. Yet all this
means nothing to the courts! George Skatzes was found guilty and that
is that! Justice?

“If
the defendant inflicted an injury not likely to produce death, and if
the sole and only cause of death was a fatal injury inflicted by another
person, the defendant who inflicted the original injury is not
responsible for the death.”

[George
adds: There is nothing true about Snodgrass’ testimony. But if, for
the sake of argument, we assumed that Snodgrass was telling the truth,
since Snodgrass said Elder was alive when Snodgrass left his cell, under
Jury Instruction 409.56 Skatzes could only have been guilty of
attempted murder.]

In the case of David Sommers,
there is no physical evidence to link George Skatzes to the crime. The
inmates who testified against George Skatzes are self-admitted
participants in the murder!

We have two people convicted for
causing the death of David Sommers by dealing a single massive blow to
the head. Two people convicted for the very same act? The object is, of
course, to convict at any cost!

Summing up his trial and convictions, Skatzes declares:

"We
have a man convicted and sentenced to death only on the word of
jailhouse snitches. It was their word alone without any independent
objective and corroborating evidence."

Law Versus Justice

In
three aspects of the courts’ proceedings concerning Mr. Skatzes and
others of the Lucasville Five, prosecutors have been able to cite and
rely on the law as pronounced by state and federal courts. But that
doesn’t mean that these convictions and sentencse are just! It only
means that Skatzes, like other Lucasville defendants, is a victim of
what he calls “the criminal injustice system.”

Let’s consider three of the judicial doctrines that stand between Lucasville defendants and light at the end of the tunnel.

The Death Qualified Jury

A
jury’s recommendation of the death penalty must be unanimous. It takes
only one juror in twelve to prevent a recommendation for death.

But
under current law in state and federal courts, any potential juror who
states that he or she opposes the death penalty under all circumstances
will almost surely be “excused,” that is, excluded, from jury service in
a capital case.

In contrast, a juror who indicates support for the death penalty is asked another question, namely, "Would you follow the instructions of the judge about the law?"
If the juror answers, Yes, then that juror may be seated even though he
or she favors the death penalty just as strongly as opponents of the
death penalty oppose it.

The following extracts show the doctrine
of the “death qualified jury” at work during the “voir dire” (jury
selection process) in the case of George Skatzes.

Juror #1

THE
COURT: . . . I have a question I want to ask you. . . . [I]n a proper
case where the facts warrant it and the law permits it, could you join
in with others in signing a verdict form which might recommend to the
Court the imposition of the death penalty?

A: No, sir.

THE COURT: You don’t believe you could do so?

A: I don’t believe so.

THE COURT: Under any circumstances?

A: No.

THE COURT: Could you tell me why?

A:
I had a brother who was murdered and I found it in my heart to forgive
that man. I would not have found him guilty to the extent that his life
would be taken.

THE COURT: In other words, you feel that if you
didn’t do it in your brother’s case, you wouldn’t do it in any other
case, right?

A: Right. . . .

[DEFENSE ATTORNEY]: . . . Do you feel that this is a teaching of your church?

A:
Not so much a teaching of my church as it is an understanding of mine
that I do not create life. I am not giver of life, so I feel that it’s
not my responsibility or within reason to expect me to take a life. . . .

THE COURT: You may step down.

Juror #8

THE
COURT: . . . In a proper case, where the facts warrant it and the law
permits it, could you join in with the other jurors in signing a verdict
form which would recommend to the Court the death penalty?

A: Yes, your Honor.

[PROSECUTING
ATTORNEY]: . . . We brought you here because we want to discuss with
you your views on capital punishment. Can you share them with us,
please?

A: I strongly believe in them. I wish they were enforced more often.

[PROSECUTING
ATTORNEY]: . . . Do you believe the death penalty is the only
appropriate penalty in all cases of an intentional killing?

A: Pretty much.

[PROSECUTING ATTORNEY]: Does that mean?

A: Yes.

[PROSECUTING
ATTORNEY]: . . . You can think of the wors[t] crime that comes to your
mind and if you find that person guilty at the first phase, we don’t go
straight to death. We have the second hearing at which point you would
get additional evidence to consider in making your decision as to what
punishment is appropriate. . . .
What we need to know is whether you
could set aside your thoughts as to what you think the law should be and
follow the law that the Judge gives you?

A: Yes.

[PROSECUTING
ATTORNEY]: If you found someone guilty of a horrible, horrible crime,
as bad as you can think of, would you be willing to keep an open mind
and listen to the evidence at the second phase before making a decision
as to which penalty is appropriate?

A: Yes.

[PROSECUTING ATTORNEY]: No matter how bad the crime?

A: Yes.

....

THE COURT: . . . We want you back [to serve as a juror in the case].

With
the doctrine of the death-qualified jury before us, there should be no
difficulty in understanding why, in such a high percentage of cases,
Lucasville
prosecutors either won a favorable jury decision or
entered into a favorable plea agreement. At one public forum concerning
George Skatzes, known to fellow prisoners as “Big George,” an attender
who had read the dialogue between the judge and potential jurors
commented: “Big George is in Big Trouble.”

Studies cited by the
American Bar Association and the American Law Institute indicate that
the process of selecting a death-qualified jury produces juries that are
more likely to convict the defendant during the guilt phase of the
trial, and more likely to impose the death penalty during the sentencing
phase. John Paul Stevens, retired Justice of the United States Supreme
Court, stated when he was on the bench that this rule “deprive[s] the
defendant of a trial by jurors representing a fair cross-section of the
community.” He is convinced that “the process of obtaining a ‘death
qualified jury’ is really a procedure that has the purpose and effect of
obtaining a jury that is biased in favor of conviction.”

The Doctrine of Complicity

A familiar hypothetical presents the problem of a group of bank robbers.

Robber
A is the driver of the getaway car. While his companions enter the
bank, he stays at the wheel of their vehicle, perhaps listening to the
car radio or reading the newspaper. Meantime, the men actually in the
bank encounter difficulties, there is a scuffle, robber B uses his gun,
and a bank teller falls to the floor, dead.

What should be the
punishment of robber A? Under Ohio law he can be found to be
“complicit” in the entire criminal course of conduct, and presumed to be
just as guilty as the man who pulled the trigger. Moreover, whereas
under Ohio law someone guilty of “conspiracy” to rob the bank would not
be eligible for the death penalty, under the Ohio law of “complicity”
every one in the group would be exposed to the possibility of execution.

After
Aaron Jefferson was convicted of striking the same fatal blow for which
George Skatzes had been convicted, an Ohio Court of Appeals considered
the case.

The court began its explanation by stating:
“Skatzes contends that his due process rights were violated because the
state charged and convicted two inmates—Skatzes and Aaron Jefferson—with
the murder of David Sommers, when the evidence suggested only one fatal
blow. He argues that these [were] ‘inherently factually contradictory
theories’.”

Not so, the court continued. “The state’s theory was
that both Skatzes and Jefferson were complicit in the crime; there was
no way to prove who had inflicted the fatal head injury. . . . A
defendant charged with an offense may be convicted of that offense upon
proof that he was complicit in its commission.”

The court may
not have read the transcript of the Skatzes and Jefferson trials. In
closing argument in the Skatzes trial, Prosecutor Daniel Hogan did not
say, “there was no way to prove who had inflicted the fatal head
injury.” Rather, Hogan asked the jury to think “about David Sommers, . .
. the one where [Skatzes] wielded a bat and literally beat the brains
out of this man’s head.” State v. Skatzes, p. 6108. And in the Jefferson trial, Prosecutor Crowe told the jury:

If
there was only one blow to the head of David Sommers, the strongest
evidence you have [is that] this is the individual—I won’t call him a
human—this is the individual that administered that blow. . . . If
there was only one blow, he’s the one that gave it. He’s the one that
hit him like a steer going through the stockyard, the executioner with
the pick axe, trying to put the pick through the brain.

State v. Jefferson, Tr. at 656-57.

The court also failed to mention that whereas Jefferson was sentenced to many years behind bars, Skatzes was sentenced to death.

Jason Robb
was the victim of a prosecution theory about Sommers’ murder that was
equally bizarre. According to prosecution witnesses, Sommers chased
Robb from L-2 to L-7, where Sommers was beaten to death by prisoners
other than Robb. Yet Robb was convicted and sentenced to death for
Sommers’ murder!

Ineffective Prohibition of Snitch Testimony

Heightened
reliability is required in capital cases. Convictions based on the
testimony of informants, who are offered reduced charges, parole, or
other benefits in exchange for their testimony, are inherently
unreliable in the absence of independent and objective corroborating
evidence connecting the defendant to the crime.

In recognition of
the unreliability of informant testimony, the House of Delegates of the
American Bar Association resolved on February 14, 2005, that the ABA

“urges
federal, state, local, and territorial governments to reduce the risk
of convicting the innocent, while increasing the likelihood of
convicting the guilty, by ensuring that no prosecution should occur
based solely upon uncorroborated jailhouse informant testimony.”

Likewise, the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice declared in 2006:

"A
conviction can not be had upon the testimony of an in-custody informant
unless it shall be corroborated by such other evidence as shall
independently tend to connect the defendant with the commission of the
offense . . . . Corroboration of an in-custody informant cannot be
provided by the testimony of another in-custody informant."

The
Lucasville prosecutions ignored the necessity for objective
corroboration of informant testimony. The uncorroborated testimony of
prisoner informants, so-called “snitch” testimony, was the principal
basis for every Lucasville capital conviction.

One
way in which Ohio seeks to guard against the perjury of snitches is by
requiring the judge to give the following instruction to the jury.
The
testimony of an accomplice does not become inadmissible because of his
complicity, moral turpitude, or self-interest, but the admitted or
claimed complicity of a witness may affect his credibility and make his
testimony subject to grave suspicion, and require that it be weighed
with great caution.

However, common sense suggests that reading
to a jury a long sentence that begins with a double negative and is made
up of polysyllabic and unfamiliar words is unlikely to protect a
defendant. Prosecutors have many ways to make perjured testimony appear
convincing to a jury. For example, an informer may describe the scene
of a crime with seeming truthfulness since, after all, often the
witness was actually there and simply ascribes to others the actions he
himself committed.

The Lucasville prosecutors used a variety of
techniques to procure compliant prisoner informants and prepare them for
trial. In Skatzes’ trial, prosecutor (now Ohio judge) Daniel Hogan
admitted that Daniel Stead, who prosecuted the trial with him, had told
a wavering prisoner, “you are either going to be my witness, or I’m
going to come back and try to kill you.” In preparing prisoner Robert
Brookover as a witness, prosecutors hit him with a rolled-up newspaper
until he stopped beginning each sentence of his testimony with the
words, “I’m not going to lie to you.” And by bringing potential
prosecution witnesses together at the so-called “snitch academy” in
Lima, Ohio,prosecutors sought to ensure that their witnesses at trial
would tell consistent stories.

Ohio court opinions also
emphasize, as a second shield against unreliable snitch testimony, the
right of the defense to cross-examine prosecution witnesses. But this
right was systematically obstructed by Lucasville prosecutors.
Typically,
officers of the Ohio State Highway Patrol interviewed potential
prosecution witnesses as many as half a dozen times before trial.
Summaries of these interviews were then entered into a computer
database. But only when the witness began to provide the narrative that
the prosecution desired were his remarks likely to be preserved in the
form of a tape-recorded interview or deposition. This
prosecution-friendly final product could then be provided to the
defense in “discovery.” The database entries might have revealed how
much the testimony of the witness had changed over time as it was shaped
by interviewers from the state. These entries were often not produced.
But in Keith LaMar’s
case, prosecutors successfully impeached the testimony of defense
witness Gino Washington by using interview records that had not been
produced in discovery.

Defense Alternatives

Lucasville capital defendants were faced with an excruciating choice.

If
they had not killed anyone during the eleven days, they had the right
to go to trial and try to convince a jury of their innocence. But their
juries would be made up of men and women willing to recommend the death
penalty; their trials would be governed by the doctrine of complicity;
and their trial court judges would have no way to assure defendants of
the good faith and credibility of prosecution witnesses.

However
if, recognizing that the dice were loaded, the defendant elected to
pleabargain, the best possible outcome was likely to be imprisonment for
life.

Thursday, June 21, 2007

On: http://georgeskatzes.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=geo&action=display&thread=67 (uploaded 2007)(date of writing unknown)
From April 11 to 21, 1993, what appears to have been the longest
prison rebellion in United States history took place at the maximum
security prison in Lucasville, in southern Ohio.(note 1) More than four
hundred prisoners were involved. Nine prisoners and a guard were
killed. After a negotiated surrender, five prisoners in the rebellion
were sentenced to death.

The five prisoners from the
rebellion on death row—the "Lucasville Five"—are a microcosm of the
rebellion's united front. Three are black, two are white. Two of the
blacks are Sunni Muslims. Both of the whites were, at the time of the
rebellion, members of the Aryan Brotherhood.

My wife and I know
the Lucasville Five and are assisting with the appeal of one of the
white men, who has since repented his affiliation with the Aryan
Brotherhood. What we have learned should give pause to anyone inclined
to dismiss all members of a group like the Aryan Brotherhood as
incurably racist. Let me give you a synopsis of the childhood of George
Skatzes (pronounced "skates"), his experiences during the 1993
rebellion, and the way that his actions ran out ahead of his
organizational affiliation and political vocabulary.

In Marion,
Ohio, where George grew up, whites lived on one side of the tracks and
blacks on the other. George and his sister, Jackie, were the children
of their mother's third marriage. Their parents were divorced when
George was an infant and he grew up in his mother's home, where a
succession of her boyfriends passed through. The house was in perpetual
disorder; George and Jackie were embarrassed by the clothes they wore
to school and never invited school friends to their house. George was
often beaten by his mother or one of his two older stepbrothers. When he
became a young adult, he often tried to help his mother, once working
overtime for five weeks and saving all his pay to buy her a freezer and
refrigerator. But the gift was unappreciated.

George became
aware that the neighbors considered his family to be "white trash." He
felt more welcome on the black side of town than by the people next
door. One of his best friends was the child of an interracial couple.
"I might as well have been biracial myself," he recalls.

How
could a person with these views have joined the Aryan Brotherhood at
Lucasville? According to George, it was not because of an attitude of
racial superiority. "You won't find anyone at Lucasville I judged
because of the color of his skin," he insists, and the testimony of many
black prisoners, both at trial and in private conversation with my
wife and myself, supports this. "One race should not have to die for
another to live," George Skatzes says. "We are all people."

Difficult as it may be for someone outside the walls to understand,
George Skatzes states that he joined the Aryan Brotherhood because he
perceived whites at Lucasville as a minority who needed to band together
for self-protection. A majority of prisoners were black. The deputy
warden, the warden, and the head of the statewide Department of
Rehabilitation and Correction were black as well. On the one hand, all
prisoners at Lucasville were oppressed. Conditions in the cell block
used for administrative segregation were such that a petition was sent
to Amnesty International and several prisoners cut off their pinky
fingers and mailed them to the federal government. On the other hand, in
Skatzes' experience, white prisoners like himself were punished for
conduct that was condoned when committed by blacks.

Still
insistent that these were the facts, Skatzes now says that joining the
Aryan Brotherhood was "the biggest mistake of my life." In the course
of responding to the day-by-day events of the rebellion, he found
himself speaking not for white prisoners or for those white prisoners
who belonged to the Aryan Brotherhood, but for the entire inmate body.

The disturbance at Lucasville was triggered by an attempt to force
prisoners to submit to tuberculosis testing, by means of a substance
containing alcohol injected under the skin. A number of Muslims said
that receiving the injection was contrary to their religious beliefs,
and suggested alternative means of testing. The warden responded that he
was running the prison. He made plans to lock down the prison on the
day after Easter and, if necessary, to force all prisoners to be
injected. These plans became common knowledge. Accordingly, on the
afternoon of Easter Sunday, prisoners returning from recreation on the
yard overpowered a number of guards and took them hostage, occupying the
L block of the prison.

During the next several hours, black
prisoners killed five white prisoners believed to be snitches. A race
war, like the one during the Santa Fe prison riot a few years earlier,
seemed imminent.

At this point, two Muslims approached George
Skatzes. George had not taken part in planning the rebellion. He celled
in L block and had stayed there when the riot began, in order to
protect his property and to look after his friends. The black men who
spoke to Skatzes were aware that, as a physically imposing older
convict (in his late forties), "Big George" had often been asked to
mediate disputes among prisoners. Siddique Abdullah Hasan and Cecil
Allen told Skatzes that whites and blacks had gathered on different
sides of the gymnasium and the atmosphere was very tense. They asked
"Big George" to help them ensure that the protest would be directed
against the prison administration, their common oppressor.

Skatzes agreed. He went to the gym and spoke to both the blacks and
whites. He put his arm around the shoulders of a black man and said, "If
they come in here, they're going to kill us no matter what color we
are." He appealed to members of each group to mix with members of the
other group.

The next day, April 12, George Skatzes (with a
megaphone) and Cecil Allen (carrying a huge white flag of truce) went
out on the yard to try to start negotiations. On Tuesday, Wednesday,
and Thursday, April 13 through 15, Skatzes was the principal telephone
negotiator for the prisoners. He took part in meetings of a leadership
council representing the three main organized groups in L block: the
Muslims, members of the Aryan Brotherhood (ABs), and the Black Gangster
Disciples. On the afternoon and evening of Thursday, April 15, he
negotiated the release of a hostage guard who was experiencing extreme
emotional trauma, accompanied Officer Clark into the yard, and released
him to the authorities. He made a radio address in which he said: "We
are a unit here. They try to make this a racial issue [but] it is not a
racial issue. Black and white alike have joined hands at [Lucasville]
and have become one strong unit."

You see the point. The
things that Skatzes did, in calming racial antagonisms, in working
cooperatively with blacks, in characterizing the rebellion publicly as
the work of "one strong unit," both black and white, hardly expressed
the worldview of the Aryan Brotherhood. In part, Skatzes' actions
expressed his personal decency; they also responded to a practical
situation that called for racial cooperation. Experience ran ahead of
ideology. Actions spoke louder than organizational labels.

George Skatzes and the black prisoners among the Lucasville Five stand
in solidarity publicly and struggle privately to understand each other.
During a fast that they undertook together, their list of demands,
drafted by one of the blacks in the group, began with a concern for
proper medical treatment for Skatzes. At the super-maximum-security
prison in Youngstown where the Five are now housed, a number of
prisoners began another fast. After about a week, only Skatzes and
Siddique Abdullah Hasan were still going without food. The prison
approached each one with assurances that their complaints would be
addressed. Each refused to break his fast until told directly by the
other that he was ready to eat again. Hasan wrote to me: "I chose to
stay on the fast to let them know that I was down with George's
struggle, too, and I would not sit quiet and allow the system to mess
over him . . . [T]hey got the message and know that we are one."

From Prison Resistance to Class Struggle
How, if at all, can this experience of prisoners overcoming racism be
extrapolated? What is the relationship of prison resistance to the
wider movement for social change?

A good deal of the recent
writing about racism calls on white workers to give up "white-skin
privilege" voluntarily in order to become legitimate participants in
the class struggle. Such a voluntaristic approach to racism is
unsatisfactory for exactly the same reason that Marx and Engels found
Utopian Socialism to be inadequate. Workers do not become socialists
because agitators have gone house to house preaching the virtues of
common ownership. Workers become socialists in action, through
experience. Thus, Eugene Debs first recognized the need for the
broadest possible unity of the working class in economic struggle and
founded the American Railway Union to take the place of the separate
unions of the railway crafts. Then, after the Pullman strike, Debs came
to understand that in a capitalist society, government will always
intervene in the economic class struggle on behalf of the capitalist
class, and helped to organize the Socialist Party.

Racism, too,
will be transformed through experience and struggle. We should
anticipate that the objective contradictions of capitalism will again
and again call on workers somehow to set aside their antagonisms toward
one another, so that they can effectively act together against the
common oppressor. As workers'actions change in response to the need for
a solidarity in which the survival of each depends on the survival of
all, attitudes will change also.

There are at least two obvious
differences between resistance in prisons and forms of struggle
outside the walls. First, a prison is a total environment. Black and
white workers in the larger society typically leave behind the
integrated workplace setting when they punch out, returning to
segregated living situations in the community. Inside a prison, blacks
and whites must survive in one another's company twenty-four hours a
day.

Second, anything good inside a prison must ordinarily be
brought about by the prisoners themselves, from below, through
self-organization. In this respect, prisons differ from the military.
Like prisons, the military is a total institution, but in the military,
desirable social change can come from above, and did come from above,
when the Armed Forces were integrated after the Second World War.

I know another George—George Sullivan, a truck driver from Gary,
Indiana—whose experience illustrates the effectiveness of the equal
status contract imposed from above in the Armed Forces. George Sullivan
grew up in southern Illinois, the same racist setting recalled by David
Roediger in the opening pages of The Wages of Whiteness.2

George Sullivan describes the racism he absorbed as a child:

There never was any question in my mind that black persons weren't any
good. I knew that, but it didn't necessarily mean they were bad people
because everyone knew that a black person's a coward and he won't
cause you any trouble. There weren't any around where I lived.

One did come to the house one time, scared me to death. I saw him at
the door, there he was, and I didn't know what to do. Any time we would
be doing something wrong, one of the comments my mother would make was,
"I'll have some big black person come and get you if you don't stop
that." So I went to the door and there was this big black person. I just
knew that he had come after me. But that's the only association I had.
I wasn't taught to hate them. It was like the feeling about animals.
Their place is not in the house or it's not where you are. Animals live
in the woods. black persons live somewhere else.3

George
Sullivan's relationship with blacks changed when he went into the
military. The new policy of integration had just gone into effect.
George reported to a barracks where he found that he was the only white.
After informing the sergeant that there had been a mistake, he was
told, "No, we've been having some problems about not integrating enough.
As new white guys come on the base they're going to be put in there.
You just happen to be the first." Then this happened:

I was a
meat-cutter and I got a bit careless. I cut three or four of my
fingers. I had them all bandaged up. I had just been promoted to
sergeant but I still had my corporal stripes. I was sitting out in front
of the barracks and the sergeant came by and he said, "Sullivan, get
your stripes on." "I can't sew with one hand," I said, "and I don't have
any money to take them over to the PX." He said, "You'll have stripes
on your uniform by tomorrow or we'll take the stripes away from you."

I was sitting there by myself just wondering what to do. One of the
guys in the barracks who'd heard it, he came out and said, "Have you
already got your stripes?" I said, "Yeah, I bought them already." He
said, "Well, if you'll go get them I'll sew them on for you." So that
was the first thing that really broke the ice. He sat and sewed those
stripes on my uniform while we got to know each other.4

Neither
George Skatzes nor George Sullivan were, or are, ideological radicals.
But they are white workers who have substantially overcome the racism
that surrounded them. Both learned through their experience to deal
with people as individuals rather than to judge them by the color of
their skin.

We need a synthesis of the pressure for social
change illustrated by the military policy of integration, with
working-class self-emancipation. Prison resistance begins to suggest
such a synthesis. There, the common need to survive creates the
pressure to cooperate. But prison administrators will not organize that
cooperation from above. In fact, prison administrators do all that
they can to forbid and break up self-organization by prisoners.
Therefore, black and white prisoners must depend on themselves to build
solidarity with each other.

In the 1960s and early 1970s, the
self-organized protest movement of blacks created a model for
students, women, workers, and eventually, soldiers. In the same way,
the self-organized resistance of black and white prisoners can become a
model for the rest of us in overcoming racism. Life will continue to
ask of working people that they find their way to solidarity. Surely,
there are sufficient instances of deep attitudinal change on the part
of white workers to persuade us that a multi-ethnic class consciousness
is not only necessary, but also possible.

NOTES

The single most remarkable thing
about the Lucasville rebellion is that white and black prisoners formed
a common front against the authorities. When the State Highway Patrol
came into the occupied cell block after the surrender, they found
slogans written on the walls of the corridor and in the gymnasium that
read: "Convict unity," "Convict race," "Black and whites together,"
"Blacks and whites, whites and blacks, unity," "Whites and blacks
together," "Black and white unity."

NOTE:
The following is intended both as a contribution to Defendant Skatzes'
forthcoming pleading in response to the State's "Motion to Dismiss
Defendant's Petition to Vacate," and as a free-standing explanation of
Skatzes' innocence of the two charges for which he was sentenced to
death: the aggravated murder of Earl Elder, and the aggravated murder of
David Sommers [during the Lucasville Uprising in 1993].

The Elder Killing

Prisoner Earl Elder was killed by other prisoners on the first day of
the uprising, April 11, in pod L-6 of the occupied cell block.

The State concedes that there were three separate assaults on Earl Elder.

First, "Elder was beaten severely by inmates when he was removed from
the L-2 safe well, where he had locked himself with Corrections Officer
Ratcliff." Motion to Dismiss at 15.

Second, after Elder had been taken to cell L-6-60, prisoner Rodger Snodgrass "repeatedly stabbed him."

However, the State's summary omits crucial details which demonstrate
that the wounds inflicted by Snodgrass were not fatal and that the fatal
wounds were inflicted in the third assault, with which Skatzes had no
connection whatever.

Rodger Snodgrass testified that he went into L-6-60 and stabbed Elder
repeatedly with a very thin, long, icepick type shank. Tr. at 4395-96,
4590. He repeated this description of his weapon in State v. Robb, Tr.
at 3757, and State v. Sanders, Tr. at 2623. In State v. Skatzes,
prosecution witness Tim Williams corroborated Snodgrass on this point,
testifying that Snodgrass was able to slide his four fingers through and
make a fist out of his hand with the point of the weapon protruding.
Tr. at 3072.

The
coroner, Dr. Larry Tate, testified that the icepick type instrument made
only superficial, non-lethal wounds. He described the difference in
appearance between the puncture wounds made by an icepick, and the
wounds made by a broad-edged weapon like a knife. Tr. at 4840-44. The
lethal injuries to Elder were made by a weapon with a "large edge" like a
knife. Tr. at 4837, 4843, 4845.

Snodgrass also testified that, after his assault on Elder, Elder was
"still alive." Tr. at 4395. Williams testified that after Snodgrass left
L block, Roper went back into L-6-60 and stabbed Elder about four times
with a different weapon, which Williams agreed was a "homemade knife."
Tr. at 3072, 3076-77.

It is unclear whether the fatal wounds to Elder were inflicted by
Roper, as prosecution witnesses testified at trial, or by other
prisoners, using a piece of broken glass, Post- Conviction Petition,
Exhibit 19. The State's chief investigator agrees that Dr.Tate, the
coroner, found a "small fragment of silver metal along with a chard of
glass" in Elder's body.

Motion to Dismiss, Affidavit of Howard W. Hudson, para. 11.

What is crystal clear is that even if Defendant were to [accept] as
true all the testimony of Rodger Snodgrass, Tim Williams. and Dr. Tate,
Defendant had no connection with the third assault that actually killed
Earl Elder. At most he should have been charged with attempted murder or
felonious assault.

The Sommers Killinq

Prisoner David Sommers was killed by other prisoners on the last day
of the Lucasville uprising, April 21,1993, in pod L-7 within the occupied
cell block.

After
the initial post-conviction pleadings were filed by Defendant Skatzes
and by the State, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, on April 28, 2004,
reversed the conviction of John David Stumpf in State v. Stumpf, 56
Ohio St.3d 712, 565 N.E.2d 835, 1990, 1990 Ohio LEXIS 1839 (1990). This
Court of Appeals decision is at 2004 U.S. App. LEXIS 8332*, 2004 FED
App. 0124P (6th Cir.)

The State argues in its Motion to Dismiss Skatzes' petition at 4 that
"post conviction actions are limited to constitutional issues only."
Stumpf requires reversal of the conviction of George Skatzes for the
murder of David Sommers as a violation of his constitutional right to
due process.

Stumpf
was convicted as the "actual shooter" of Mary Jane Stout. "At a later
trial of Stumpf's accomplice Wesley, however, the state presented the
testimony of a jailhouse informant to establish that Wesley was the
shooter." 2004 U.S. App. LEXIS 8332 at *3. Stumpf was sentenced to death
and Wesley to Life imprisonment for the same act: firing the fatal
bullets that killed Ms. Stout.

"We now join our sister circuits in concluding that the use of
inconsistent, irreconcilable theories to convict two defendants for the
same crime is a due process violation." Tr. at *49.

The convictions of both Stumpf and Wesley must be set aside, the Court
held. Accordingly, the panel reversed the decision below in State v.
Stumpf, and remanded the case "with instructions to issue the Writ of Habeas Corpus in the petitioner's favor, unless the state elects to
retry him within 90 days of the date of entry of the conditional writ."
Tr. at *70-71.

Understandably, since Stumpf had not yet been decided, the parties in
this case have not previously brought before the Court the fact that, in
separate trials, Georqe Skatzes and Aaron Jefferson were convicted of
striking the same fatal blow that killed David Sommers. Just as in the
cases of the two men convicted of firing the same bullets that killed
Mary Jane Stout, the convictions of both Skatzes and Jefferson violated
their constitutional right to due process and must be reversed.

In State v. Skatzes and again in State v. Jefferson, Coroner Leo
Burger testified that the cause of death was one massive blow to the
head. He said that the injury could well have been inflicted by a
baseball bat. He described "a single injury with a blunt instrument,
extremely forceful, not only fracturing the bone, shattering [it] in
pieces, but also, separating the natural bone, suture lines." State v.
Skatzes, Tr. at 3292-94.

Dr.Burger was explicit that this single blow
was the cause of death:

Q. Doctor, do you have an opinion to a
reasonable degree of medical certainty as to the cause of death of David
Sommers?

A. Yes, cause of death is massive single injury to the head.

Tr. at 3295.

The obvious next question is, Who struck the single, fatal blow?

Addressing the jury both at the beginning and at the end of the trial
of Defendant Skatzes, prosecutor Hogan said that it was Skatzes In
opening argument in State v. Skatzes, Prosecutor Hogan stated:

“On the third killing of David Summers ["Sommers"] at the very end of
the riot, you will hear evidence that Mr. Skatzes wielded the ball bat,
smashed Mr. Summers' skull into a number of pieces. He didn't act alone.
There were a number of people involved in the beating and stabbing and
strangling, but he was the principal offender in that particular
killing.”

“[T]hink about David Sommers, the third, the last of the three
killings, the one where he [Skatzes] wielded a bat and literallv beat
the brains out of this man's head.”

Tr. at 6108 (emphasis added).

However, in State v. Jefferson another prosecutor told another jury
that the principal offender was not Skatzes, but Jefferson. Prosecutor
Crowe said in closing argument that in 1994 Jefferson had told the
Highway Patrol:

"I know that first lick I hit on him [Sommers] did
damage. It leaked. I saw the brains leak. I got the blood all over me."
Tr. at 656.

This
is a reasonably accurate summary of what Jefferson did in fact tell
Trooper J. W. Fleming of the Ohio State Highway Patrol in Interview
#1264 on June 23, 1994. On that occasion Jefferson told Trooper Fleming:
A. So I went to L-7, matter of fact I had a baseball bat with me.

Q. Was it an aluminum bat again?

A. Yeah, it was a Louisville Slugger. Steel bat.

Q. Okay, you're down --he's standing at the bottom of the steps? In front of the showers.

A. Standing at the bottom of the steps between 41 and the shower. I
come downstairs, I didn't even ask no questions. I busted him in the
back of the head with that old Louisville Slugger.

Q. In the back of the head? A. Back of the head.

Q. Now, right side or left side?

Q. I just swung. I know it hit the back of his head. I tell you what I know that the brain was leaking.

“If there was only one blow to the head of David Sommers, the
strongest evidence you have [is that] this is the individual --I won't
call him a human --this is the individual that administered that blow.
Out of his own mouth. If there was only one blow, he's the one that gave
it. He's the one that hit him like a steer going through the stockyard,
the executioner with the pick axe, trying to put the pick through the
brain. That put that baseball bat into the brain of David Sommers.”

Tr. at 657 (emphasis added).

The prosecution's conduct in convicting Skatzes and then Jefferson for
the same offense (a single massive blow to the head that killed David
Sommers) precisely parallels the prosecution's conduct in convicting
Stumpf and then Wesley for the same offense (firing the bullets that
killed Mary Jane Stout) .If the due process rights of Stumpf and Wesley
to a fair trial were thereby violated, requiring reversal of their
sentences 'and convictions, so were the due process rights of Skatzes
and Jefferson.

Because this is a "constitutional issue," Motion to Dismiss at 4, the
verdicts and sentences against Skatzes and Jefferson must be vacated.

Conclusion

George Skatzes was found guilty of the aggravated murder of Officer
Vallandingham but was not given a death sentence. He is on Death Row
solely in connection with his conviction for the aggravated murder of
prisoners Elder and Sommers. Both these convictions having been shown to
be invalid, Skatzes' death sentences must be set aside.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

I was convicted of three murders during the eleven-day rebellion at
the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, Ohio in April
1993. When I tell people I was not guilty of any of them, they say: But
weren't you at SOCF because you were already found to be guilty of a
murder? So let me begin with that earlier conviction.

In the
city of Bellefontaine, Ohio, in October of 1979, the manager of Rinks
Department store was murdered. It would appear that this may have been
an armed robbery gone bad. There is more than one theory as to what
really happened in this case.

This case went unsolved for
nearly three (3) years. Then in mid to late 1982 some inmates wanted to
cut a deal to get out of the trouble they were in.

In the
summer of 1982 a good snitching inmate doing time in London Ohio
Correctional Institution called the Bellefontaine authorities and told
them he had information concerning the murder that happened in their
town in 1979.

The price for this information would be his freedom, which he gained. Plus other perks.

The next thing that happened, in October 1982 I was indicted for this robbery/murder.

There was no physical evidence whatsoever to link me to this crime.

Mr. Prosecutor used this inmate, one that was doing 37 to
130 years in Lucasville, Ohio's maximum security prison, and his wife
to convict me.

Both of these people were indicted for this murder and
several other crimes, but they cut a deal. They received immunity for
all their crimes for testifying against me. The following questions and
answers when Mr. Rogers testified against me are reported on page 1366
of the transcript:

Q. What would you do to keep from going to jail? Would you lie under oath? A. To --

Q. To prevent yourself from being convicted, punished, going to prison, would you lie under oath?

A. I certainly would. I have before.

Of course this is only a very short version of the deals, the injustice in my original conviction. My case is by no means unique or rare. The system is full of cases like mine.

To sum it up, I started out doing a life sentence, convicted of murder
on the word of two (2) lying snitches! A good, honest review of the
record of case number 83-CR-3, Logan County, Ohio would prove I am
telling the truth!

In my opinion these convictions should not
be able to stand. Inmate testimony alone put me on Death Row. These
convictions were obtained by the use of bribery and intimidation of the
inmate witnesses. A review of the record will prove this.

Inmate Lavelle turned state's evidence and testified against other
convicts. Mr. Prosecutor told Lavelle, "You are either going to be my
witness, or I'm going to try to kill you" (Transcript, p. 4047).

Transcript, p. 4047

How can this type of testimony be enough to convict anybody?

The prosecutor also told the jury that if I had agreed to snitch, I
would have been the witness and Lavelle would have been the defendant.
These were his words:

Transcript, p. 5751.

"Mr.Skatzes had his opportunity and he
chose not to take it. Had Mr. Skatzes taken it, they're right.
Mr.Skatzes, assuming he would tell us the truth, would be up there on
the witness stand testifying and Mr.Lavelle could be sitting over there.
I make no apologies for that." Transcript, p. 5751.

"...the admitted or
claimed complicity of a witness may affect his credibility and make his
testimony subject to grave suspicion, and require that it be weighed
with great caution."

One would think the above statement makes
good common sense, but that is not so. When an inmate testifies for Mr.
Prosecutor his word becomes the gospel.

Think about it:
Should snitch testimony, uncorroborated by any physical evidence, be
strong enough to send a person to his death?

Even before I was
indicted for the murder of Earl Elder, statements were made as to who
really murdered this man. The powers that be very well know I had
nothing to do with the murder of Earl Elder, but since I would not
snitch, I got charged and convicted, and sentenced to death.

One of the inmates who was involved in the Elder murder came to my trial
and testified against me. This man is walking the streets free now.

Another inmate who was involved in the Elder murder was man enough to
step up and confess to his crime. He got a life sentence this past June
6, 2006. Still I sit on Death Row as if this confession never took
place.

I was also tried, convicted and sentenced to death for
the alleged murder of inmate David Sommers. The cause of death,
according to the coroner, was one (1) massive blow to the head.

In my trial I was the one who dealt the one massive blow that killed Mr. Sommers.

In another convict's trial for the murder of Mr. Sommers,

the prosecutor told the jury that he was the one who dealt that fatal blow.

The State's own evidence proves that I am not responsible for the murder of Mr.Sommers.

There is just so much to all this. I don't want to go overboard in
trying to explain everything. All I can ask is that you please read
about this case.

If you feel the evidence is there to convict and sentence me to death, so be it.

On the other hand, if you believe I am innocent, please help me. These
courts will not do their job unless they are made to do so. People
power, you getting behind me and making some noise, is the only way
justice will be served.

Historian and Attorney Challenges Supreme Court Fact-Finding in the
Case of Leader of 1993 Lucasville Uprising Sentenced to Death.

Staughton Lynd, a lawyer and historian who lives in Niles, near
Youngstown, has sent an "Open Letter" to Ohio Supreme Court Justice Paul
Pfeifer, challenging Justice Pfeifer's fact-finding in the case of
State v. Skatzes.

The letter of protest arises from the
opinion Justice Pfeifer authored in State v. Skatzes (2004), 104 Ohio St.3d 195, decided Dec. 8, 2004, and from the column entitled "The Lucasville Prison Riot" that Justice Pfeifer caused to be circulated for
publication on May 18, 2005. The column, like the opinion, concerns
itself almost entirely with the alleged role of prisoner George Skatzes
in the April 1993 disturbance.

Lynd concludes that in State v.
Skatzes the Ohio Supreme Court has produced a factual narrative that:

1.
relies on the testimony of jailhouse informants, with no apparent
attempt to assess the truth of the facts asserted by these inherently
unreliable witnesses;

2. does not cite to the record;

3. contains
disputed material facts that go to the guilt or innocence of George
Skatzes with respect to all three murders for which he was convicted.

The unpersuasive fact-finding of the Court in this case is equally
apparent in its decisions about other Lucasville prisoners sentenced to
death (Robb, Sanders, Lamar), Lynd writes.

Before becoming an
attorney, Lynd taught American history at Spelman College, Atlanta and
Yale University, and was a candidate for president of the American
Historical Association. He is a member of the Society of Friends, or
Quakers.

In 2004 Temple University Press published Lynd's book,
Lucasville: The Untold Story Of A Prison Uprising, available at Barnes
& Noble stores throughout the state. He has arranged for a copy to
be mailed to Justice Pfeifer.

Lynd urges Ohioans of all
descriptions to join in calling for a moratorium on executions in Ohio
while the disputed material facts in this and other capital cases are
further examined.

Let me introduce myself. I am an attorney licensed to practice in state
and federal courts in Ohio. I am also an historian: I taught American
history at Spelman College, Atlanta and Yale University, and have been a
candidate for president of the American Historical Association.
Finally, I am a member of the Society of Friends, or Quakers.

In 2004 Temple University Press published my book, Lucasville: The
Untold Story Of A Prison Uprising, based on eight years of research. I
have arranged for a copy to be mailed to you.

This is a letter
of protest arising from the opinion you authored in State v. Skatzes (2004), 104 Ohio St.3d 195 (hereafter, the Opinion), and also from the
column entitled "The Lucasville Prison Riot" (hereafter, the Column)
that you circulated for publication on May 18, 2005. The Column, like
the Opinion, concerns itself almost entirely with the alleged role of
prisoner George Skatzes in the April 1993 disturbance.

I do not
intend this communication as an attack and do not wish to harm you in
any way. On the contrary, please understand this lengthy critique as a
plea for your attention to serious flaws in Ohio's death penalty
decisions. I believe that you are one of the more fair-minded state
court judges in deciding capital cases. I believe that, for whatever
reason, your opinions concerning Skatzes represent a departure from this
norm. What I write may help to explain why State Rep. Shirley Smith,
other legislators, and a significant section of the Ohio bar, seek a
moratorium on executions in Ohio so that the way we make these life and
death decisions can be more carefully considered.
Reliance on
"snitch" testimony, central to the Lucasville convictions because of the
absence of physical evidence, is one among many reasons for a
moratorium.

Because you have caused your views to be distributed to the media, I feel compelled to do the same.

I

First of all, I object to your public comment through your Column on a
case that may yet return to the Ohio Supreme Court on appeal from a
state post-conviction verdict, has not been finally adjudicated in the
federal courts, and could be remanded for further proceedings in Ohio
courts. Canon 3(A)(6) of the Code of Judicial Conduct adopted in 1972 by
the American Bar Association states:

A judge should abstain from public comment about a pending or impending proceeding in any court . . . .

While a proceeding is pending or impending in any court, a judge shall
not make any public comment that might reasonably be expected to affect
its outcome or impair its fairness . . . .

The Preamble to the
Ohio Code makes clear that: "When the text uses 'shall' or 'shall not,'
it is intended to impose binding obligations the violation of which can
result in disciplinary action." The Commentary on subsection (B)(9)
dispels any doubt as to the continuing relevance of its prohibition:
"The requirement that judges abstain from any public comment regarding a
pending or impending proceeding continues during any appellate process
and until final disposition" (emphasis added).

In my opinion,
what you say in your Column should indeed reasonably be expected to
affect the outcome and impair the fairness of future court proceedings.
You refer to the actions of prisoners including George Skatzes as "foul
deeds." You characterize the uprising as "the worst humankind has to
offer." As I will demonstrate below, a number of your factual assertions
are inaccurate.

II

Statements of fact in the Opinion
and the Column are offered without citation to the record. Many of these
statements are false or misleading. Insofar as these statements occur
in the State v. Skatzes Opinion, they are especially prejudicial because
they constitute determinations of factual issues by a State court and,
as such, must be presumed to be correct in any future habeas proceeding
in federal court. The habeas petitioner, in this case Skatzes, would
"have the burden of rebutting the presumption by clear and convincing
evidence." 28 U.S.C. ƒu 2254(e)(1).

"On the evening before the riot, April 10, high-ranking members
of the Aryan Brotherhood, including Jason Robb, Dewey Bocook, and
Freddie Snyder, and the Muslims, including Sanders and James Were, met
in the L block gym. Upon seeing this, inmate Robert Brookover knew
'there was something going on.' Robb told fellow Aryan Brotherhood
member Roger Snodgrass to 'be on our toes tomorrow'."

The
reader is left to infer that Skatzes might have approved the riot in
advance, or at least might have known about it. The record refutes any
such inference. The Opinion fails to mention what Prosecutor Daniel
Hogan stated to Skatzes' jury in closing argument: "No one has ever
raised the issue of whether Mr. Skatzes planned this riot. The State
certainly never alleged that." Tr. at 6096. Inmate Kenneth Hazlett
testified that Skatzes was in his cell, catty-corner across from Hazlett
in L-6, when the riot began. Tr. at 4722. According to inmate Tom
Hurst, the riot caught Skatzes by surprise. Neither he nor Skatzes
understood what was going on. Tr. at 5003. Everyone wanted to know what
was happening, but Skatzes had no more answers than the rest of the
inmates. Tr. at 5019. These witnesses corroborated Skatzes' unrebutted
testimony that no one told him that a riot was going to break out, and
that he was in his cell writing a letter when the riot began. Tr. at
5311-12, 5314-15.

Moreover, the meeting alleged by the Opinion
to have occurred on the evening of April 10 is not as clear in the
record as the Opinion suggests. Brookover and Snodgrass were prisoners
who turned State's evidence. The jury instructions approved by the
Supreme Court in this case indicate that the testimony of such persons
should be assessed with care. Indeed, after the Robb trial, the State
made a special investigation that called Brookover's credibility into
question. But the Opinion does not hesitate to credit the facts
testified to by these inherently unreliable witnesses.

Furthermore, Snodgrass did not testify to any meeting between Aryans and
Muslims on April 10. He recalled a so-called "walk-around meeting in
the gym" between Snyder (AB), Hasan (Muslims), and Anthony Lavelle of
the Black Gangster Disciples, but did not mention a date. He also
remembered an occasion when Snyder and Hasan talked on the diet line in
the chow hall "probably about three weeks, maybe two, prior to the riot
itself." Tr. at 4357-59. Neither Brookover nor Snodgrass were able to
overhear anything that was said in any of these alleged encounters.

Paragraphs 4-5: The Early Hours of the Rebellion

In the Opinion's recital of events on the afternoon and evening of
April 11, Skatzes is mentioned only in connection with the fact that a
day or two later Aryan Brotherhood members moved into cell block L2
("the Aryans, led by Jason Robb and Skatzes, controlled L2").

The Opinion reports, "Several corrections officers ('C.O.s'), including
Robert Vallandingham, who was working in L1 that day, were taken
hostage," but fails to mention that there was no testimony implicating
George Skatzes in the taking of correctional officers as hostages on
April 11, nor was he shown to have captured or locked up any prisoners.

The Opinion also states that "C.O.s Darrold Clark and Jeff Ratcliff . .
. were confined for most of the riot in L2." It omits the testimony of
prosecution witness Clark that, while under the control of Muslims in
L6, he asked Skatzes to get him out. Skatzes left, came back and said,
"You are going into my block," and took Clark to L2. Tr. at 2328-29.
Clark himself testified that when he could not sleep he asked for
George, that George got a mattress and laid down between him and the
door, that is, between Clark and anyone who might come to harm him. Tr.
at 2380-81; see also Tr. at 5152-53. According to prosecution witness
Snodgrass, after Clark was transferred to L2 Skatzes
told him that
he was going to do everything that he could to get him out of there. He
told him that he didn't have nothing to worry about, that he wasn't
going to let nothing happen to him, that he was safe. . . .
It came
to where Clark would, when George was gone, Clark would be even more
nervous and he would ask for George, where is George, where is George, I
want to talk to George, and basically he wouldn't talk to no one else
at times . . . .
Tr. at 4581.

Similarly, the
Opinion says nothing about the fact that when Skatzes heard that Officer
Ratcliff had been beaten by inmates, Skatzes came and got Ratcliff and
took him to L2 also. Tr. at 5995A, 5999A-6000A. Skatzes removed the
blindfold and some red tape from Ratcliff's eyes, took water, cotton
balls and towels, and cleaned away a red substance that was burning
Ratcliff's eyes. Tr. at 5145-46, 5199. Ratcliff testified, "[I]f he
wouldn't have come and got me, I probably wouldn't be here, I would
probably be dead." Tr. at 6000A. Judge Mitchell surmised that the reason
Skatzes was not sentenced to death for the aggravated murder of Officer
Vallandingham was because of Officer Ratcliff's testimony. Opinion of
the Trial Court at 5.

The Opinion is also silent about Skatzes'
very substantial activity during the early hours of the rebellion in
saving the lives of hostage correctional officers, as to which both
prosecution and defense witnesses testified.

The
first person whose life Skatzes helped to save was Correctional Officer
Harold Fraley. After the takeover, prosecution witness Snodgrass
testified, he saw Skatzes screaming to correctional officers on the
other side of the gates that there was a correctional officer who needed
to be evacuated. Skatzes was saying: "He's hurt. He needs help. We need
to get him out of here before he dies. . . . I am goin' to take him to
the back of L-8 and I will put him there and you all better come and get
him." Snodgrass saw Skatzes pick the man up and take him to the
stairwell at the back of L8. Tr. at 4379-80; see also Tr. at 5911-16.
State personnel retrieved Correctional Officer Fraley from the L8
stairwell at 4:45 p.m. Stipulation, Tr. at 6058; Tr. at 1858.

Inmate Dwayne Johnson described the efforts he and Skatzes made to save
the lives of other officers on the first night of the riot. Johnson,
Skatzes and other prisoners arranged for officers Kemper and Schroeder
to be carried out to the yard where they could be picked up. Johnson
said Skatzes stayed until the last guard was released from a makeshift
infirmary in the L3 dayroom. This was at some personal risk because, as
Johnson testified, it required going behind the backs of the leaders of
the riot to get the injured officers out. Tr. at 5939-48; see also Tr.
at 1858-59, 6040.

Skatzes did what he could to
insure the safety and well-being of the guards who remained on L side as
hostages. Negotiation tapes reveal that Skatzes made rounds to be sure
that the hostage officers were safe, delivered food and water, delivered
medication to officers Buffington and Dotson, and even offered Officer
Dotson his own blood pressure medication. Tr. at 4219-20, 5995A; Neg.
Tape #4, Ex. 295 (Ex. 295A at 4-5); Neg. Tape #5, Ex. 296 (Ex. 296A at
21); Neg. Tape #12, Ex. 303 (Ex. 303A at 29). (Exhibit numbers in
parentheses are transcripts.)

Skatzes also saved the lives of prisoners. On the first night of the
riot, Frank Williams saw Skatzes come into the L3 dayroom where the
injured inmates were. He heard Skatzes say repeatedly, "Man, this is
bad. These guys are hurt. Get these guys out of here." Tr. at 5048-49,
5062. Tim Williams, an inmate who testified for the prosecution, said
that he was accused of being involved in a plot to kill Skatzes and a
leader of the Muslims. When confronted by the Muslim leader, Skatzes
said he did not think Williams had anything to do with it. Williams
later told a Highway Patrol investigator that Skatzes helped to save his
life. Tr. at 3087, 3195.

When prosecution witness
Brookover went to Skatzes and asked whether he was going to be killed,
Skatzes assured Brookover that he would not let that happen. Tr. at
3695. Brookover testified: "[N]o matter what George feels about me
today, I believe in my heart he saved my life . . . ." Tr. at 3771; see
also Tr. at 3480, 3490.

Paragraphs 6-7, 136-37: The Murder of Earl Elder

The Opinion and Column repeat, without evaluation, the prosecution
theory that Skatzes ordered AB member Snodgrass to kill Elder and
remained outside Elder's cell while "Snodgrass went into the cell and
stabbed Elder numerous times."

Moreover, the Column states
untruthfully that after Snodgrass supposedly emerged from Elder's cell,
"Elder was dead." This statement is in conflict with the Opinion, which
concedes that after the alleged stabbing a prisoner named Roper "told
Snodgrass that Elder was not dead." Opinion at Paragraph 137. In fact
Snodgrass, if indeed he did stab Elder, did not succeed in killing him.
Prosecution witnesses Snodgrass and Tim Williams testified that
Snodgrass stabbed Elder repeatedly with an icepick type shank. Tr. at
4395, 3072. The coroner, Dr. Tate, testified that an icepick type
instrument made only superficial non-lethal wounds. Tr. at 4842-4845.
The lethal injuries appeared to have been made with a "large edge" like a
knife. Tr. at 4843, 4845. "When you use a knife, you get an elongated
type injury," Dr. Tate explained. Tr. at 4842-43. "The large wounds
going into the chest are all elongated, which makes it less likely to be
an icepick or an auger type of instrument," Tr. at 4843, and "seemed to
be [made with] a large edge," Tr. at 4845.

Snodgrass himself testified that Elder was still alive and moaning when
Snodgrass came out of Elder's cell. Tr. at 4395, 4590-91. The fatal
stabbing attack occurred afterwards. Tr. at 3076-77, 4550-51, 4590.

Of
course, if Skatzes had anything to do with that later attack he would
still be complicit in Elder's murder. But he did not. The Opinion
asserts that when Roper told Snodgrass that Elder was still alive,
Skatzes told Snodgrass that he (Skatzes) would "take care of it."
Opinion at Paragraph 137. This is untrue.

Snodgrass' testimony was as follows:

Q. You said how Lucky Roper came back to the gym after you had been in L-6?
A. Yes.
Q. And yesterday I think you said that someone said, I'll take care of it. Is that Lucky?
A, Lucky said it. . . .
Tr. at 4590 (emphasis added). And again:
Q. And then sometime after that, he [Roper] came down to the gym and said he's still alive?
A. Yes.
Q. And then said he would take care of it?
A. Yeah.
Tr. at 4591 (emphasis added).

Paragraph 8: What Skatzes and Officer Ratcliff Did on April 12

The Opinion accurately recites that on April 12, prison authorities
turned off the electricity and water in L block. It then states:
Skatzes shouted from a window with a bullhorn, demanding that the
authorities turn the power back on. He also had C.O.-hostage Ratcliff
identify himself using the bullhorn and demand that power be restored
inside L block. [Emphasis added.]

The Court's
version of events appears to be drawn from the testimony of prisoner
David Lomache, a prosecution witness. See Tr. at 2521.
But Officer
Ratcliff's own account of speaking on the bullhorn does not suggest that
he felt coerced or that he considered he was asking for something that
he did not himself want. The prisoners told Ratcliff that "they wanted
me to speak to my fellow officers because I have been there the longest,
they knew me and I could respond and say: I'm alive and I'm okay, and
we need water and electric." In answer to the question, "Were you told
what to say?" Ratcliff answered:

A. Well, I wasn't
told. They said I should ask them if they would turn the water and
electricity on so we could see. It was hard to get around the place, we
tripped over people on the way up through there.

Ratcliff
testified further, "I proceeded to give my message, which was nothing
they wanted me to say. It was what I wanted to say." He was also asked
at trial, "Were you feeling any pressure in there or it was just go
ahead and talk to them, say whatever you want?" and answered, "No, just
say what you got to say . . . ." Tr. at 5186-90.

Paragraph 10: Skatzes as Negotiator, April 12-14
The following is the totality of what the Opinion provides concerning Skatzes' activity as a negotiator before April 15:
During the first half of the riot, Skatzes was one of the lead inmate
negotiators. He told the prison negotiators to stop tear-gassing K
block, which they were doing to quell a disturbance, "or you are going
to cost an officer's life." As he continued to argue with the
authorities over the phone, Skatzes declared, "You just cost an
officer's life." At that time, however, the inmates did not kill a
guard.
This is a dramatically incomplete account.

On
Monday, April 12, Skatzes accompanied by prisoner Cecil Allen went out
on the yard with a bullhorn. According to prosecution witness Snodgrass,
other prisoners were fearful that Skatzes might be shot but Skatzes
volunteered with the purpose of starting negotiations and getting the
riot over with. Tr. at 4564-66.

Skatzes became the principal
telephone negotiator for the prisoners on Tuesday, April 13 and
continued into the evening of Wednesday, April 14. "I'd like to see
those officers get out of here," Skatzes said on April 14, and David
Burchett, who was negotiating for the State, replied, "I know that you'd
like to see them get out of here, because you care about them too. I
know you do. So, you and I can work through this." Ex. 295A at 27-28.
Skatzes argued that the safety of the officers depended greatly on being
able to see what was going on around them. Ex. 295A at 33. Expressing
hesitations about inmates talking to the news media, Burchett asked
Skatzes, "How am I going to know that you're not going to hurt one of
the news people?" Skatzes responded, "if I wanted to hurt somebody, I'd
be in here cutting these hostages' heads off." Ex. 295A at 49. Skatzes
also stated, "I'm trying to do everything I can do to assure the safety
of these guards." Ex. 295A at 49. Skatzes asked Burchett, "Do you
realize what that is to keep people from going off on one another and to
keep peace in here and, and everything like that to keep these people
from going at them guards?" Ex. 295A at 58. Responding to Burchett's
concern that there were so many media that might want to talk to the
inmates, Skatzes said, "We're not worrying about hurt feelings, because
somebody didn't get to be first. We're worried about lives in here." Ex.
296A at 18.

On the evening of April 14, Skatzes
and Burchett agreed that in the morning two hostages would be released
in exchange for a live media broadcast by the prisoners. Even according
to Sergeant Hudson, principal investigator for the State, spirits were
elevated on both sides. Tr. at 2158-61; Ex. 296A at 22-26. Unfortunately
this negotiated accord was repudiated at a meeting of gang leaders the
next morning.

Paragraph 11: The Hole in the Wall of L7

According to the Court's version of events, at some point during the
siege Skatzes and Robb ordered a crew of inmates to make a hole in a
back wall of L7. They planned to kill a C.O. and dangle his body out of
the back of L7 where it could be seen from the front of the SOCF by
members of the media.
Thus, the hole in the L7 wall alleged in the
Opinion was a hole in an outside wall through which an object could be
lowered and made visible to media outside L block.

A
hole was made in the back wall of L7 but, three prosecution witnesses
indicate, it was not made in an outside wall and was for a purpose
entirely different than displaying the dead body of a guard. Sergeant
Hudson, lead investigator for the State, testified that the hole was
"where they had pounded through walls down into the tunnels," and
referred to "the area where the walls were breached and they gained
access to the tunnel below L-7." Tr. at 1977 (emphasis added). FBI agent
Marc Hopper agreed that the breach in the L-7 wall went "down into the
tunnel." Tr. at 2433. Prisoner Tim Williams, a prosecution witness, was
the most specific. The hole was in the unit manager's office at the back
of the block. It was a hole about "two to three feet in height and
about three feet wide." He said that the hole was put there because the
prisoners "wanted to tap into the pipes that was down in the pipe chase
to get water." And finally:

Q. Do you know who was involved in making that hole?
A. Stick Man [Salyers], Doc Creager and somebody else . . . .
Q. Do you know who gave them the orders?
A. No, but I know who was there issuing orders after awhile. It was Namir or Elmore.
Tr. at 3109-10.

Paragraph 12: The Purported Meeting of April 14

The Court's narrative describes a meeting on April 14 at which,
"[a]ccording to Lavelle, a vote was taken to kill a guard if their
demands were not met." Skatzes is said to have attended the meeting and
not to have spoken against the decision.

No one
other than Lavelle testified so specifically about a meeting on April
14, and even Lavelle stated that no guard was selected to be killed and
no detailed plans were made as to how the killing would be done, nor
could he recall that a time for the murder was agreed to. Tr. at
3856-57. And very much in contrast to a similar meeting the next
morning, April 15, although FBI recording equipment was in place there
is no objective record of the meeting Lavelle thought he remembered.
Indeed, there is every reason to believe that Lavelle confused the
supposed meeting of April 14 with the meeting that took place the next
day.

The significant happening on the morning of April 14, not
mentioned in the Opinion, was a statement at a press conference by
State representative Tessa Unwin to which prisoners listened on
battery-powered radios. Unwin was asked about a message painted on a
sheet hung out of L block windows to the effect that a guard would die
if the authorities ignored prisoners' demands. She responded, "They've
been threatening something like this from the beginning. It's part of
the language of the negotiation."

All sources --
including prisoner informants David Lomache and Anthony Lavelle, Tr. at
2530-31, 3860-61, and hostage Officer Larry Dotson, who, although
blindfolded, could sense the increase in tension around him -- agree
that Ms. Unwin's remark caused many prisoners to feel that they were not
being taken seriously, and set the stage for Officer Vallandingham's
murder the next day.

Paragraphs 13, 139: Skatzes' Alleged Statement, "I Will Kill the CO"

Skatzes is supposed to have made this statement to Hasan on the evening
of April 14. This is perhaps the most striking example of the tendency
in the Opinion to select the testimony most damaging to Skatzes, and to
set it forth as fact without any effort to assess its truthfulness. If
one makes such an attempt one finds:

1. The sole
witness to Skatzes' alleged statement was a prisoner named Miles Hogan.
Hogan was cross-examined about his previous description of the incident
when interviewed by representatives of the Ohio State Highway Patrol in
January 1994, before trial. It was pointed out to him that in January
1994 he did not attribute these words to Skatzes but merely said that
Skatzes was standing there at the time.
Q. [Y]ou didn't say that George Skatzes said anything like that, right?
A. I may not have.
Tr. at 3015. In fact, Hogan conceded that in the 1994 interview
he confused Stanley Cummings with Siddique Abdullah Hasan, and confused
Siddique Abdullah Hasan with Anthony Lavelle. Tr. at 3016-17.

2.
Hogan testified that Skatzes made his alleged remark "around nine or
ten o'clock" the evening of April 14. But the State's own records show
that Skatzes was negotiating on the telephone at this time: the
transcript of Negotiation Tape #5 states expressly that Skatzes and
prison negotiator Dave Burchett were talking on the telephone from 8:23
p.m. to 10:50 p.m. Ex. 296A at 1. Moreover, the transcript shows that
the two negotiators ended the evening in a state of exhausted mutual
congratulation because, so they had agreed, two hostages were to be
released the next day.

Paragraphs 14-15, 140-41: The Meeting of April 15

The Opinion asserts that between 8 and 9 a.m. on the morning of April
15 there was a meeting of gang leaders at which "a vote was taken to
kill a C.O., and a member from each inmate gang was chosen to
participate in the killing."

Additionally the
Opinion states, "According to witnesses at the meeting, Skatzes agreed
with the decision to kill a C.O." The Column says that "Skatzes and the
others voted to kill a guard if their demands were not met."

Finally, according to the Opinion, after Officer Vallandingham was
murdered "Skatzes walked behind those who carried the body" to the yard.
Every one of these assertions is unsupported or dubious. It is true
that the April 15 meeting repudiated the agreement Skatzes had
negotiated the previous evening for the release of two hostage officers.
It is not true that the meeting decided to kill a guard.

There
was no vote to kill a C.O. The FBI taped the April 15 meeting. The
transcript of that tape is part of the record as Ex. 322A. The following
are the only references in the transcript to votes and decisions.

Ex. 322A at 2. Stanley Cummings, who appears to have chaired the meeting, states:

. . .[W]hen I said that I would ask for a show of hands. I want to hear
a voice. When we leave up out of here this morning, let's have this
established. All three things. Going to the phone. All that what we
talked about in the past concessions.
There is nothing here about killing an officer. Cummings' reference to "all three things" is clarified by his next words:
Let's this be the format. . . . We might have to sit a day or two to do
that. Stall to them. We might have to tighten our own belts like they
been doing us. Let the first business be our first format for the day.
Water, electricity, turn it back on. . . . People up underneath this
basement [of the occupied cell block] out from down there. Let this be
our first format.
This was a vote on negotiating demands for the day, not about a murder.
Ex. 322A at 15. Cummings summarizes the 45 minute discussion as follows:
Okay, we can but we can sit down and come back in and we put the
non-negotiable things up then we came back with the time element that we
give them to do it. Hey Jason, ahh, Hasan, why don't we put the
non-negotiable things up, George, go back in. Talking about the
hardliners came up with non-negotiable things. Then we going to set down
and go over the time element, if they don't do these things. . . if you
don't do these things, the non-negotiable things we going with the time
element, then we going to kill them one. Then we open up negotiations
again. I mean, is everybody in agreement on that? (Emphasis added.)

In its statement of facts in State v. Robb (2000), 88 Ohio St.3d 59,
62, the Court used certain words taken from the foregoing paragraph to
argue that Cummings' statement proved a vote to kill a guard. On the
contrary, Cummings projected a second meeting at which participants
would "set down and go over the time element" before a guard was to be
killed.
Anthony Lavelle, the prosecution's principal witness
concerning the April 15 meeting, testified explicitly in State v.
Skatzes that "we was going to meet back up later on that afternoon"
before making a final decision to kill a guard.

Q.
What you are saying is that when you left the meeting on the fifteenth
there had been talk of killing a guard, there had been talk of these
demands, there had been talk of deadlines, ultimatums, correct?
A. Yes.
Q. But the conversation among the inmates, including yourself,
progressed beyond that to the notion of a meeting that afternoon to
decide what to do, correct?
A. That's correct.
Q. When you left that meeting, in your mind, there had not been a final decision made to kill a guard?
A. That's correct.
Tr. at 4067 (emphasis added.)

Skatzes did not agree with killing a Correctional Officer; according to
prosecution witness Snodgrass, Skatzes was the only participant in the
April 15 meeting who expressed misgivings.
The prosecutor asked Snodgrass about Skatzes' participation in the discussion of killing a guard at the April 15 meeting.
A. . . . [T]here was one time when Mr. Skatzes made a comment personally about how he felt about the situation.
Q. What did he say?
A. He said -- well, he put it across like, look brothers, I'm with you;
don't get me wrong now, I'm with you, but, you know, before we do this,
we better give this a lot of thought because once you kill the
correctional officer, it is going to change the whole ball game. In
other words, he was trying to dissuade them or make them think of
another alternative. . . .
Q. . . . Tell me now who were the people that voted to kill the guard?
A. The only one that actually spoke up anything to the contrary was Mr. Skatzes.
Tr. at 4435-36.

The allegation that a member of each gang was chosen to take part in a killing contradicts the State's own evidence.
This supposed fact appears to be drawn from the testimony of a prisoner informant named Stacey Gordon.
The April 15 meeting ended just before 9 a.m. and the murder of Officer
Vallandingham appears to have occurred between 10:30 and 11 a.m. Gordon
says that "Robb was on the phone talking to a negotiator, and they
eventually got into an argument, real heated exchange, where they
slammed the phone down a couple of times." Tr. at 4253. However, the
State's own transcripts indicate that Skatzes was the only prisoner who
negotiated on the telephone that morning. Gordon was apparently under
the mistaken impression that Robb was the prisoners' negotiator that
morning and that "me and George Skatzes, we was securing the phones."
Tr. at 4253.
Equally implausible is Gordon's account of how Skatzes
acted as doorkeeper for the death squad, letting them into L2 and then
informing them, one or two hours later, that they would not be needed.
Tr. at 4254, 4256. According to the State's own evidence, Skatzes was
negotiating on the telephone all this time.

Skatzes could not
have walked behind those who carried Officer Vallandingham's body to the
yard because he was still negotiating on the telephone or at the cell
of Officer Ratcliff.

Notes taken by officers who
were listening in on the telephone negotiations from the tunnels
underneath L block report the following:

10:45 Skatzes talking -- not clear . . .
10:50 Still talking. Phone rings . . . . Talking about last night's
deal [between Burchett and Skatzes for the release of two hostages].
Phone rings again while Skatzes talking. . . .
10:53 Background voice said something about a dead body.
Defense Ex. D. These notes were recorded by Officer Richard Cunningham. See Tr. at 2195-96.
There is an additional page of notes by Officer Cunningham that was not
entered into evidence. It records that Skatzes was still talking on the
telephone after 11 a.m.
10:54 Skatzes talking on phone. Appears to be negotiating with someone . . . .
10:55 Skatzes still talking. Phone rings once while Skatzes talks.
11:02 Skatzes still talking on phone. Content unclear. Seems to be
dealing with demands and how to work them out.. . . Seems to be talking
about turning power on. "Wasting valuable time."
11:06 Off phone (I believe). No more of Skatzes' voice.

According
to an observation by Lieutenant Newsome in Tower 5, also not entered
into evidence, at 11:05 a.m. he observed "4 black inmates dragging a
sheet containing ? [sic] from M2 gym door. Back in M2 gym door and
secured at 11:09."
There is a second reason for believing that
Skatzes did not accompany Officer Vallandingham's body to the yard. It
will be recalled that Skatzes had moved Officer Ratcliff into a cell in
L2. Ratcliff was asked how he learned about Officer Vallandingham's
death. He answered:

A. George came up to the cell,
and he sat there and he wasn't hisself, you know, usually, he would be a
different way, and he was quiet. We was like: What's wrong? What's
going on? . . .
Inmate came up and asked to speak to George
privately out of our cell, and he went out. He come back. He said: Man, I
can't believe it. He just -- I can't act the way he was acting when it
happened. He come in, he had his head down, he was rubbing his head, he
said: I can't believe this, I can't believe it happened. I said: What?
He says, I think they really did a guard. . . .
Tr. at 5157-58.
Ratcliff testified that, at Skatzes' suggestion, Skatzes, Officer
Ratcliff, Officer Clark, and one of two other prisoners then got on the
floor, held hands, and prayed. Tr. at 5159. Officer Clark corroborated
this testimony. Tr. at 2353.

Paragraphs 14, 140: The Words "Guaranteed Murder"

Both the Opinion and the Column stress the fact that when Skatzes
resumed telephone negotiations after the April 15 meeting, he demanded
that water and electricity be turned back on or there would be a
"guaranteed murder." It is true that he used those words. It is also
true that, read in context, their evident intent was to try to save
life.

Skatzes testified that he went to the phone
when the morning meeting ended. He had been told what to say. He was
trying to get the State's negotiator to understand that the threat was
real. He was worried that a correctional officer would die and in
absolute frustration he used the words, "guaranteed murder": the State
feared that if water and electricity were turned on, someone might be
electrocuted; but if they were not turned on, Skatzes realistically
predicted, an officer would be killed. Tr. at 2238, 5377-83.

The fragmentary record supports Skatzes' recollection.

Sergeant Hudson himself was at the command post at this time, and he
read into the record his notes on the conversation between Skatzes and
negotiator Dirk Price beginning at 9:35 a.m. Tr. at 2235-39. When
Skatzes returned to the telephone as instructed, he predicted that an
officer would be killed if the water and electricity were not turned
back on. Tr. at 5380-81; Neg. Tape #6, Ex. 297 (Ex. 297A at 2); Defense
Ex. A. Skatzes stated further that he could not negotiate anything else
until the inmates had water and electricity. Price expressed a concern
that there was a question of safety because of electric damage, to which
Skatzes responded that there was no electric damage and he knew what
would happen if the electricity were not turned on. Tr. at 2237-38.
At 10:19 a.m. Skatzes alerted the State, "If you don't get the lights
and water on, there's going to be a dead hostage." Tr. 2195. This same
patch of conversation was recorded on Negotiation Tape #6. A fragment
catches these words by Skatzes, Ex. 297A at 2:

I
stress to you, . . . if you turn this on, you, you think you might
electrocute somebody. . . . If you don't turn it on, it's a guaranteed
murder.

Paragraphs 20-21, 143-45: The Murder of David Sommers

The Opinion's narrative of the murder of David Sommers on April 21
begins with the statement: "during a meeting in L2 between Robb,
Lavelle, and Sanders, the gang leaders decided that inmate David
Sommers, who controlled the phones and ran the inmates' tape player
throughout the negotiations 'had to die, he knew too much'." Continuing,
the Opinion declares: "Brookover [,] . . . Skatzes, Snodgrass, and
Bocook . . . changed into different clothes. . . . Skatzes struck
Sommers in the head with a baseball bat at least three times. . . . The
coroner attributed death to a massive blow on the head."
There are several problems with this narrative.

There is no evidence of prior intent by Skatzes to kill Sommers.
Skatzes was not part of the reported meeting of "gang leaders" about
Sommers. Even if intent can be inferred from a change of clothes,
prosecution witness Snodgrass was unclear whether Skatzes was among
those who changed clothes on April 21. Snodgrass testified: "I can't say
if Mr. Skatzes did or not." Tr. at 4480. Finally, Snodgrass also
testified that the intent of whichever Aryans went to L7 on April 21 was
not to kill Sommers, but was directed at three other prisoners, Tr. at
4477, and Ohio law does not contemplate transferred intent from one
victim to another.

In another trial the State designated
another prisoner as the man who struck the massive blow that killed
Sommers. Brookover testified that Bocook, Jefferson, and he himself each
struck Sommers with a baseball bat. Tr. at 3506, 3543, 3564. And in the
later trial of Aaron Jefferson, Prosecutor Crowe told the jury:

If
there was only one blow to the head of David Sommers, the strongest
evidence you have [is that] this is the individual -- I won't call him
human -- this is the individual that administered that blow. . . . If
there was only one blow, he's [Jefferson] the one that gave it. He's the
one that hit him like a steer going through the stockyard, the
executioner with the pick axe, trying to put the pick through the brain.State v. Jefferson, Tr. at 656-57 (emphasis added).

III

I have sought to show that in State v. Skatzes the Ohio Supreme Court
produced a factual narrative that:

1. relies on the testimony of
jailhouse informants, with no apparent attempt to assess the truth of
the facts asserted by these inherently unreliable witnesses;

2. does not
cite to the record;

3. contains disputed material facts that go to the
guilt or innocence of George Skatzes with respect to all three murders
for which he was convicted.

The unpersuasive fact-finding of
the Court in this case is equally apparent in its decisions about other
Lucasville prisoners sentenced to death (Robb, Sanders, Lamar).

Clearly the deficiencies in these decisions go to the general process
by which defendants are sentenced to death in Ohio. The juries in
capital cases make no findings of fact. The opinions of trial court
judges are cursory and, to be frank, are riddled with errors. The judges
of Ohio appellate courts find facts but have no opportunity to witness
the demeanor and assess the credibility of witnesses.

This is
why, as an historian as well as an attorney, I believe further inquiry
is merited. I urge Ohioans of all descriptions to join in calling for a
moratorium on executions in Ohio while the disputed material facts in
this and other capital cases are further examined.